Category: Personal Development
Work is filled with difficult moments—a mean coworker, a boss who ignores your ideas, unrealistic demands from stakeholders and a problem that turns out harder than expected. Such moments often arouse strong feelings of anger, hurt, frustration, desperation, self-doubt, low self-worth and inadequacy. Instead of tackling the situation with a clear head, we let our emotions determine how we think and how we act. Learning to navigate difficult situations is a skill that can be mastered by developing the right mindset and practicing the right strategies.
Aggressive managers aren’t easy. Working with them may leave you feeling overwhelmed, fill you with self-doubt and lower your self-worth. It is like running on a treadmill that just never stops. Just when you’re about to heave a sigh of relief, a new challenge is thrown your way. You dread coming to the office with the worry of what awaits you and how you’re barely going to make it through the day. While aggressive managers are difficult, they aren’t impossible to work with. With the right strategies, you can turn them around while also learning valuable lessons along the way.
You will come across people at work with ill-intention—those who try to take advantage of you by acting as a victim and manipulate you into doing things that serve their interests while being harmful to your mental health and personal well-being. Manipulators are hard to spot because with the intention to cheat and deceive, they use tricks that are meant to influence, exploit and control you. They are quick in sensing your weak spots and smart to know how to capitalize on them.
High workloads, major life changes, job insecurity, conflict with family members, financial instability and multiple other factors can be a source of stress for you. Poor lifestyle choices, negative thinking patterns or a tendency to worry excessively can exacerbate these stressors making it difficult to lead a happy and healthy life. You can’t avoid stress, but you can certainly learn to manage it well. To do this, you need to apply the right strategies by taking charge and acting before it’s too late.
Apologizing at work is necessary in certain situations. But what if instead of saying sorry when it’s needed, you say it way too often. Saying sorry may seem polite, but apologizing even when it’s not required can hurt your image and credibility—you may come across as defensive, submissive, or someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Over-apologizing hurts your career. Absolutely apologize when it’s necessary. Just don’t do it for things that don’t merit an apology in the workplace. Do it for the right reasons so that your apology is not only accepted, but also valued.
To excel in your career, some skills matter more than others. They put you in front of others, connect you to them, build trust and enhance your credibility. But building these skills is hard—unlike tasks that are assigned to you in which you’re expected to excel, no one gives the opportunities to practice these skills explicitly. The burden to learn and master them is on you. If you’re stuck in your career or putting in a lot of time and energy into your work, but not getting the desired results, spend some time building these 5 skills. You will not only achieve great success at work, but mastering these skills will bring a sense of pleasure and fulfillment that will make you perform even better.
Navigating complex problems, generating insights and finding solutions that others didn’t know existed is the most admired skill at work. Yet, very few people are able to do it well—the ability to think critically is a rare skill. Most people lack thinking muscles because they treat it as a born gift instead of being an acquired trait. Not sufficiently exercising their mind by thinking through tough problems keeps them falling for cognitive shortcuts, quick solutions and outdated beliefs. Becoming a master thinker doesn’t require an extraordinary brain. You only need to embrace healthy thinking habits that keep your mental machinery working at its best.
Procrastination is a silly habit—even when we know how important something is, we end up delaying or avoiding it. Procrastination wins when it over powers our sense of judgment—we know that not taking action is not right for us and yet that’s exactly what we do. Procrastination not only makes us fall through on our commitments, not being able to make progress on what we set out to do makes us feel powerless, helpless and ineffective. The constant guilt, shame and anxiety from not doing the work consumes us. We end up putting more effort and energy than it would have taken to do the work.
If you’re constantly irritated, feel demotivated or drained out, there’s a strong possibility that you’ve failed to set personal boundaries at work. Your personal boundaries involve setting limits and defining expectations on what you will and will not tolerate. Work without boundaries can impact your productivity and harm your mental health. Exhaustion from being available 24/7, never saying no or tolerating bad behavior can impact you emotionally and make you ineffective in your job.
When our team appreciates our work or applauds us for a job well done, we feel proud, joy and inspired. Having a team that celebrates our wins and keeps us motivated to do even better is key to happiness and long-lasting work satisfaction. However, to grow in our career, cheer and admiration is not enough. We also need people who can point out our faults, highlight our flaws and help us see our imperfections. Negative feedback, however good it may be for our growth, is hard to accept.
We all have tremendous potential waiting to be unleashed. Some people utilize their potential to achieve amazing feats while others never realize what they’re capable of as they let their self-limiting beliefs get in the way of their growth. When you consider talent as the only measure of success and don’t give enough credit to effort, attitude and practice, you construct an artificial wall in your mind that limits your visibility and makes you believe you don’t have what it takes to reach the other side. It’s not your natural ability, but your attitude to learning that determines where you end up.
In all our endeavors, success is a desired end state. It brings a moment of exhilaration, joy and pride that’s hard to explain. Failure on the other hand is disappointing, frustrating and can even demotivate some people from trying to reach for their goals. There’s no playbook to success because it’s often a culmination of many different factors—depending on not only what you’re trying to do but also your circumstances, knowledge, experience and luck. These 6 critical factors provide a blueprint to success to guide you in your journey towards your goals.
Communication problems are the source of a lot of misery at work. They lead to expectation mismatch, misalignment, confusion and even friction between people. When communication breaks down, project deadlines are missed, stakeholders lose trust and business suffers. Poor communication makes it hard to get things done and achieve success. Learning to converse with others is one of the most important skills at work—we all need to learn and improve upon it. Reducing communication gaps requires conscious effort to hash things out, embrace uncomfortable conversations and desire to listen and learn from others.
What do you do when you disagree with your manager or someone senior to you? Do you voice your opinion or do you choose to keep quiet? Speaking truth to power is a rare skill. Telling someone above you that they’re wrong requires courage and confidence. Holding your tongue and staying silent or nodding your head in agreement even when you disagree definitely feels safe.
Workplaces are filled with moments when it’s easy to lose your calm. Uncontrollable, sudden, and intense emotions that overwhelm you, can dramatically and unexpectedly lead to an emotional outburst. Negative emotions like anger, fear or frustration show up when your expectations aren’t met or people say or do things that conflict with your personal values and aspirations.
People refuse to give candid feedback to their managers because they don’t want to put their jobs at risk. This prevents most managers from getting an accurate picture of how others view them, often creating a huge gap between perception and reality. Just like your manager is expected to share constant feedback to help you learn and grow, you also need to contribute to your manager’s growth.
To succeed at work, you need someone to advocate for you. Someone with the real power to shape your career by aligning your aspirations with the opportunities you need and making them possible for you. Good sponsors can take you to the next level in your career by identifying where your work might be valuable and signing you up for it. Finding the right sponsor can help accelerate your career.
Human mind which is capable of achieving amazing feats isn’t without its limits. Out of thousands of thoughts that run through our mind every single day, 80% are negative. This tendency to give extra weightage to negativity makes our mind, which is a meaning-making machine, attach meaning to things that don’t even exist. We start taking things personally even when it’s not about us.
There are two types of people at work—those who make a lot of noise and others who actually do the work. Loud ones get the attention and opportunities even though they may not have the skills. Quiet ones keep adding value behind the scenes silently but never get the appreciation and recognition they deserve. Value creation and appreciation of that value doesn’t happen by simply doing great work—you also need to promote yourself and make yourself visible.
Who would you like on your team or choose to work with—someone who’s highly competent but unpleasant and difficult to work with or someone with decent skills but an amazing attitude? Likability plays a crucial role in your success at work. Because after all, everyone likes to work with people they like. Competence, knowledge and skills are important to get the right opportunities and additional responsibilities at work, but those things alike, likability gives people an additional reason to choose you over others.
Some people have the nerve for taking risks. Give them a challenge and they’ll jump right into it. You’ll find these people leading some of the biggest initiatives, driving the most challenging projects, and making bold decisions at work. They’re admired and respected for their ability to step up when everyone else is trying to escape the risk. These people are the change drivers, thought leaders and visionaries who have a knack for solving tough problems, courage to step into the unknown and the skills to handle the uncertainty. But what makes these people such good risk takers?
Are you bold enough to say what you need to say in a meeting or do you feel knots in your stomach and refuse to speak up? Being able to speak up on the spot is a very valuable skill. Sharing your perspective or contributing to the discussion even in small ways not only projects confidence, it also builds credibility. But how do you find the courage to do so when your heart starts racing at the thought of uttering even a few words? How can you say something that can potentially make you appear silly, feel embarrassed or look incompetent?
Big or small, it’s impossible to remember everything you need to do. When you don’t actually write things down, it’s hard to prioritize complex, long-term, forward looking tasks over easy, short-term, time wasting activities. Not writing things down has another problem. Keeping track of all the unfinished tasks puts an unnecessary burden on the brain. To make the most of your todo list, you need to turn it from a bunch of meaningless line items to a more meaningful action oriented list.
What erodes credibility at work and what builds it? Most employees don’t think about credibility consciously which prevents them from taking the right steps to build it. They think that if they keep their heads down and keep doing the good work, someone will take notice and good opportunities will land their way. But workplaces aren’t designed to lift people with good intentions and good skills. Building credibility requires earning trust of people who work with you. It requires more than just competence and knowledge.
What makes some employees rise through challenges, tap into opportunities, find a way to break through and make an impact while others are taken aback by a difficult circumstance and don’t know what to do or how to move forward? The difference between high impact contributors and typical contributors isn’t talent, competence or skills. They’re equally capable, have similar potential and the urge to do well. Yet, impact players consistently find ways to add value while others are simply going through the motions.
There are definite benefits of being part of an organization that promotes employee well-being and work towards building a mentally healthy culture, but they’re not enough. What if it’s not the work culture but your own behavior that gets in the way? Most people look outward when it comes to addressing mental health challenges, without paying attention to their own behaviors and actions. Master these 4 behaviors to stay mentally healthy at work.
As important as it is to apply the right strategies to manage your imposter syndrome, equally important is to know what constitutes bad advice. Knowing what isn’t helpful will not only save you time, it will prevent you from applying advice that can amplify your feelings of uncertainty and self-doubt. Don’t settle. Don’t look for shortcuts or quick wins. Don’t go after the fake it till you make it, positive thinking and pushing on through advice.
When you fall for your mind’s thinking traps, you may assume it’s lack of competence that stops you from going after the things you want. But it’s not competence that’s holding you back, it’s your lack of confidence. When you lose sight of belief in yourself, no amount of competence can make you successful. Competence gives you the skills, confidence underpins your ability to actually get things done.
With the uncertainty in the economy, many companies have not only announced a hiring freeze but are also downsizing their entire divisions and non-profitable initiatives. Whether you’re forced to find another job or someone who’s doing it as a choice, the process to find another job is never easy. Making mistakes by not following good practices reduces the likelihood of you landing a job on time, builds stress and may even hurt you mentally and financially. If you want to get hired in a company of your choice, follow these practices.
Good mentors help unlock your hidden potential. They may not only offer advice when you’re stuck with a problem but also help you get over your own limiting beliefs. They tell you things you may not want to hear which keeps you grounded in reality. They’re your sounding board to determine which ideas are feasible and practical and which ones aren’t worth pursuing. But how do you find such a person and why should they mentor you?
When you’re having a bad day at work, your mind spirals into all sad things. It’s like someone dimmed the light around you and everything appears dark and gloomy. You’re more likely to lose your nerve or react poorly to even minor inconveniences. Healthy disagreements turn into personal attacks. Minor conflicts into major issues. While it is difficult for you to look for the bright side of things when your mind is stuffed with negativity, there are specific things you must do to prevent a bad day from turning into a bad week.
As you grow in your career, the cost of not putting your time to best use is significantly high. If you’re serious about utilizing your time well, use these 3 productivity frameworks to identify what deserves your attention and what shouldn’t be done at all, give life to your goals by utilizing the right opportunities and taking action, and staying focused by avoiding distractions when you actually get down to work.
Your manager should know about the areas you’re doing well, where you excel, your strengths and highlights. Keeping your manager in the loop is essential for your success and growth. But what if your manager isn’t paying attention? Should you keep your head down and keep doing the good work with the hope that they will take notice someday or can you do the work to get into the spotlight and make yourself visible?
Do you want to 10x your impact at work? Do you know what behaviors hold you back? What about your team—do they admire, respect and acknowledge you? Do they find you helpful? The gap between how you view your behaviors and actions and how others perceive you is always huge. Don’t let your manager decide where you end up. Don’t wait for them to share feedback that you need. Ask these 5 questions every month to take charge of your own growth and 10x your impact.
The constant desire to improve ourselves and our life situation, seeking a better life, or the pursuit of pleasure is what keeps the human race thriving. But it also sets us on a hedonic treadmill constantly chasing the next big target. We set goals and expectations. We run to gain those things. But once we succeed or reach that destination, instead of being euphoric, the feeling is more of a relief.
Faking it by posturing, pretending to be confident, and ignoring those nagging feelings of self-doubt can offer some temporary respite, but once you’re done putting on a show, being inauthentic to yourself negatively impacts your perceptions of yourself. Imitating confidence and competency has long-term implications. Don’t fake it till you make it, build genuine confidence through action.
Getting laid off and losing your job is hard. It not only hurts you financially but also personally. Left unhandled or dealt with badly, a layoff can make you adopt harmful behaviors that destroy your self-confidence. Handling a layoff well is not only about finding a new job. More than the job hunt, it requires mental strength to deal with the emotions that are bound to run high.
What’s the one big difference between employees who stand out within the first few months of joining and those who struggle to fit in? New hires who do well at work stand out because they own their onboarding experience. Instead of letting the onboarding process in their organization determine where they end up, they get into the driver’s seat, buckle themselves up and get to work.
Busyness creates an illusion of productivity. Being caught inside the ‘busy trap’ makes it harder for you to see that productivity is not based on the number of hours you put in; it’s the time spent creating value. Instead of accepting busyness as a way of life, practice behaviors that will make work more meaningful and impactful without taking a toll on your mental health and personal well-being.
Do you consider the limitations of a situation by focusing on the negatives or see the opportunities in every situation by focusing on areas of growth and improvement? When you’re not operating within the confines and constraints of your own limitations, you no longer see the world as a limited pie but view it as an endless ocean where there’s enough for everyone.
Do you recognize and pay attention to mistakes that limit your career? Those who succeed at work do not have special skills and abilities. They aren’t more intelligent or talented than others. What makes them stand out are the little decisions they make every step of the way. If you’re frustrated that your growth isn’t aligned with your effort, identify the career limiting mistakes you are making.
Do you get mad at work? Are these significant issues that are making you angry or are you losing your cool over small stuff? An enraged mind is in no condition to think strategically. Staying angry makes you prone to poor judgment; it makes you say things you will regret later. Emotional regulation is the key to mastering your negative emotions.
Big goals that are far off into the future can lead to procrastination, promote all-or-nothing thinking and provide momentary happiness without long lasting satisfaction. Instead of major victories with outsized expectations, what if you targeted small wins? Small daily goals that give a sense of progress; work that moves you forward, is fulfilling and rewarding, where each step takes you closer to your destination.
Out of hundreds of things a manager is expected to do, maintaining a healthy relationship with their people is just one of them. And it’s true that a good part of a manager’s job is to invest time in their people and their growth. But a relationship isn’t a one-way street. You can’t have a healthy relationship with your manager unless you are invested in your own growth. People who excel at work don’t blame a poor relationship on their manager. They’re willing to do the work necessary to make it work.
Although imposter syndrome is linked with feelings of inadequacy and thinking that nothing you do is ever good enough, how it plays out in your day-to-day life and impacts you varies from person to person. Acknowledging what you are feeling is important, but what’s even more important is to pay attention to the underlying behaviors and actions that such feelings tend to evoke. Your feelings of being a fraud can turn you into a procrastinator, perfectionist, overworker, people pleaser, or a self diminisher.
All stress is not bad. Oftentimes, it signals you are doing worthwhile work. That you care about adding value and creating an impact. Stress can also energize you enabling you to put in the effort required to make something happen. But what if your stress is debilitating? What if it gets in the way of making meaningful contributions? What if instead of energizing you, workplace stress sucks into your energy and hurts your motivation?
What’s the difference between people who end up loving what they do and those who are on an endless pursuit looking for the one thing that will fulfill them only to be left disheartened, dissatisfied, and unhappy? Progress and not passion was the answer I was looking for all along. 3 strategies that have worked for me over the years to love what I do while letting my passion grow behind the scenes for me.
There are two types of people at work – those who like to make commitments and others who like to keep them. People who like to make commitments don’t pay much attention to how those things fit into their schedule. People who like to keep commitments are careful about their choices. They understand that doing something always comes at the cost of not doing something else.
A sense of control in our life not only rids us of the fear and anxiety that comes with feeling out of control, it’s the single most critical factor in helping us stay productive at work. It’s our internal sense of freedom to know that we have the autonomy to make corrections, drive to be persistent and the power to influence the outcome. Apply these strategies to feel in control, do more and achieve more.
Negativity can be contagious. It may not be obvious at first, but it’s easy to get trapped into a negative person’s way of thinking if you are not careful around them. Left unhandled, their cynical, gloomy, and defeatist behavior can emotionally drain you, impact your productivity, and turn you into the very person you hated at first. Learn how to deal with a negative person without going crazy.
Are you not getting the feedback you need because others aren’t giving it to you or is it because you aren’t taking the initiative to get it right? Getting the feedback that you need requires taking full responsibility with the belief that you have the power to drive your own growth at work as opposed to blaming someone else for not moving forward.
Delivering bad news to your boss is not exactly fun. Imagining how they would react, what they would say, and how they would judge you can be terrifying and reason enough to try to cover it up. But knowing that with the right strategies you can turn things around and even win their trust and respect, you can get over your fears and take the necessary steps.
Working with a dominant personality is not fun, but sometimes avoiding them is not an option either. Their authoritative behavior combined with a body language that reeks of dominance can be quite upsetting. When you can’t avoid or quit, what should you do? Learn to work with them
The person who makes it to the top isn’t the one who faces many hardships and obstacles along the way, it’s the one who persists and resists – persists in their efforts and resists the easy path to give up. In other words, it’s not our failure, but our reaction to it that determines where we end up
The simple three-letter word “yet” is the sound of possibility, a positive intervention in our life to help us see straight. The nudge we all need to take control of our life by looking beyond the obstacles in the present to the opportunities of tomorrow. “Yet” carries with it the expectation that we can reach our destination
Strategic thinking is a muscle that we all need to build because using it right at work can be a strategic advantage in your career growth as an individual. You need to cross the boundary of the comfort zone to think about an idea to its extreme without mental guardrails to put it down. You need to uncover new insights that moderate thinking would never surface
When you meet a new person, you take time to decide if it’s a relationship worth investing in or not. When it comes to your job though, do you apply the same level of due diligence? Companies are after all in some sense similar to people. You can think of a company as a group of people with a shared identity. Spend effort into knowing this identity as you would with any new person. Determine if it’s a relationship worth investing
Being good at what you do cannot make you stand out at work. How you operate and interact with others play a crucial role in your success at work. You need to adopt powerful behaviors that can make you influential, impactful and move you forward. Adopting and practicing these behaviors will bring about the biggest positive change in your work life
The secret to getting ahead is not just doing great work, it also requires the ability to navigate office politics, not in an insincere or manipulative way, but rather as a skill to better handle the politics that goes on inside your organization. You simply can’t win people based on logic and rationality
Effects of the role conflict can vary from person to person. While some learn to deal with the friction that comes with a role conflict and thrive by staying positive and seeking measures to counteract it, others stop functioning and stop being productive by choosing to stay with stress and resentment. Learn to increase your productivity and general well-being when dealing with a role conflict
How can you bring your best to every situation when dealing with the pressure of high expectations? Performing under pressure isn’t some innate talent. Anyone can learn to tackle it. You may have all the expertise, skills and the knowledge to do well, but if you don’t know how to handle pressure situations well, pressure will make you do worse, and lead you to fail utterly
Most of us have many desires at work. We fantasize about a positive future. But we are always too busy or too lazy to turn them into goals. Without defining what it is that we want, we let many opportunities slip by. We fail to make the best use of every situation and let distractions eat away into our mental energy and time. Goal setting mitigates the problem by helping us step outside our dreams to execute in reality
Managing conflict demands that we calm down and think clearly. Instead of letting our reaction slip through our unconscious, we need to take charge of it in conscious awareness. Instead of letting destructive patterns of behaviour be our default reaction, we can choose to engage in positive action. Seeing the conflict for what it is and not how it manifests at first
Why are we so afraid to ask for help when we need it. Is it because we are worried others will question our intelligence and smartness? Asking for help signals self awareness of our own limitations, humility to accept what we don’t know and the courage to ask for it. It’s a sign that we are confident in our abilities to tackle whatever is standing in our way to get to where we need to go
Path to success goes through failure. It’s scattered with mistakes, big and small and when confronted with challenges, we emerge on the other side more confident than we began. Instead of letting self-justification cloud our judgment, we can learn to embrace those painful moments that are essential for progress
Greater achievement comes from realizing how our thinking impacts our goals. By adopting the right mindset and using the right mode of thinking, we can overcome the challenges that stand in the way of achieving our goals. Learn when to use the big picture “why” and when you need nitty-gritty “what” based thinking
How do you deal with adversity? Are you an optimist who is briefly disturbed by the experience but soon bounce back and storms out of the phase with the belief that it’s only a rough patch or a pessimist who continues to be paralyzed by fear of failure and spirals into hopelessness with the belief in the permanent nature of their situation. Learn to shift from learned helplessness to learned optimism
No doubt some people are bad at delivering criticism. But aren’t we far worse at receiving it? We don’t know when it’s useful to tune in to someone’s criticism and when it makes sense to politely shove it aside and move on. It is easy to ignore feedback with the attitude that it doesn’t apply to you, but accepting the uncomfortable truth, even if it’s painful at first is the only way to grow
Are your actions inline with the life you want to lead? The problem of work life balance isn’t about more work, it’s about staying productive in what you are doing. There will always be some obstacles, something more to be done to finally get the life you want, but knowing that these obstacles are also a part of your life can help you start now, this very moment
Lead with vulnerability. It’s the courage to let your guard down, courage to be seen, courage to accept you don’t know, courage to acknowledge mistakes, disconnect your identity from your ideas, embrace discomfort and the ultimate belief that you are not perfect, you are always work in progress
Whatever dreams you have of the future cannot be fulfilled without reflecting on the lessons from the past. Experience by itself does not lead to learning. True learning comes from reflecting on your experiences. Take this journey of self reflection using reflection triangles
We speak more through our bodies than our words. The posture we assume, expression on our face, hand gestures and our eye movement conveys far more than we would like to expose. Understand the power of our body language and the role it plays in workplace communication and collaboration
Signing up to be a manager is an act of great courage. While the change demands letting go of our existing identity and embracing new one with openness and curiosity, it’s our mindset that determines what we make of it. What type of manager are you – do you accept vulnerability and commit to learning or put on an armor and try to protect yourself from the challenges that lie ahead?
Do you act out of your sense of goodness for others or out of fear of rejection, discomfort from displeasing others and not having the courage to receive their disapproval? Being a people pleaser will trap you within the boundaries of your own limitations by seeking external validation instead of utilising your true potential. Learn to create value instead of doing work to satisfy others expectations
What do you do to deal with frustration? After being stuck in a spiral of feeling frustrated, you panic about the situation, add stress and anxiety to your life, feel powerless with your situation and then do absolutely nothing about it. Instead of wasting time overthinking through situations that cause you frustration at work, know that you cannot get rid of them, but you can learn to respond to them in a healthy manner
Do you control the number of decisions you make by choice and dedicate your peak mental energy to those significant decisions that impact your life in a huge way? Learn to make active choices and design a systematic approach to reduce the effect of decision fatigue and maximise your chances of making the best decision
Striking up a conversation at work can be intimidating. We avoid eye contact, turn our heads away and pretend to be busy on our phones all in an attempt to save ourselves from the awkward moment of meeting someone and not sure what to say. Learn how to start a conversation that does not involve small talk and adds value to work without making you feel uncomfortable
The ability to think big is the first step to break out of our bubble of self imposed limits and channel our energies to explore a bigger and better future. Thinking big doesn’t end with the visualisation of a better future, it’s rather the beginning of commitment to think right every step of the way
How do you know if a distraction is good or bad for you? Distractions do not ask for permission, they have an autonomy of their own. Learn to design your own personal system to make your distracted identity collaborate with your desire for focussed attention instead of fighting against it
We all face multiple conflicts at work, but it’s the conflict with the boss that can be our biggest source of stress and exhaustion at work. Does your manager push your buttons, takes away your high hopes, crushes your desire to be innovative and refrains you from producing your best work. Are they a micromanager?
Is motivation a state of mind or a muscle we need to build? Lack of motivation is not lack of information, it’s the lack of behaviour to put that knowledge to use. Only the act itself can set motivation flywheel in action. It can turn impossible to possible. We do not fear failure once we learn to find pleasure in trying.
Difficult people push our buttons by acting in undesirable ways. Their behaviour gives us permission to pass judgement and offload responsibility by blaming them. Is it really in our best interest to navigate our lives by blaming them, holding them responsible for not reaching our goals and pretending that we didn’t succeed because of some mean co-workers
Do you tend to solve problems in your head instead of putting them to action? There’s a fine line between thinking and thinking too much. Overthinking can make us obsess about the problem instead of finding solutions, bind our mental frame to seek negative and get stuck in analysis paralysis with the desire to find a perfect solution
Do you believe in a fixed mindset which is constrained by beliefs and thoughts or a growth mindset which finds freedom through learning? While giving up might be easy with fear of failure, persevering despite failures helps us progress in the direction of our goals
How can we be deliberate in our choices to do effective work more efficiently? Productivity demands shifting our focus from obsessing about the outcome to the system, the process to achieve that outcome
Do you take charge of your own growth by managing up or believe it’s your managers responsibility to enable trust, build a strong rapport with you, give you work that will help you shine and remove all barriers that can impede your success at work. How do you see the other side of this bi-directional relationship?
Do you consciously opt out of the drama triangle and assume responsibility? Learning to shift the dynamics from drama to empowerment is of crucial importance since it moves the culture of the organisation from finding problems to creating solutions
Mentor mentee relationship is a beautiful orchestration between two parties built on trust. It’s an incredible experience effective in shaping learning and growth. Mentoring is a true meeting of the minds that requires commitment to hold each other accountable, respect and openness to share ideas and perspectives and engage in meaningful goals
Do you negotiate using your story or understanding other’s truths? Is negotiation a game of power. What role do our biases and emotions play in the way we negotiate and the outcome we achieve. Learn how to use negotiation as a powerful tool for effective collaboration and create win-win solutions at work
Can we be curious like a child without burdening ourselves with the image we have created. Imposter syndrome can help us find a new reality by questioning our ideas, knowledge and beliefs and confront our own feelings. Learning to deal with the inner self, its struggles and conflict and not put them aside can turn anxiety, unworthiness into a desire to do better and strive for more
Are you solving the urgent or planning for the important. Do you think strategically and prioritise work that avoids tomorrow’s crisis or too busy solving the problems of yesterday that there’s no time to create a better future. Find out how to prioritise, master productivity and create win win situations at work by putting eisenhower matrix to use
How do we learn how to learn? Breaking mental barriers to self directed learning is possible with a shift in mindset. It starts with the belief that you can learn.
Do we listen to understand or listen to speak. Is it merely listening or a way of learning? This article embarks on my journey to Active Listening and the profound learning in the process.
